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Council to keep spending priority funds

Monday, May 14, 2018
9:34:02 MDT AM

Coun. Paul Smith (left) was the lone vote against the elimination of council priority funds — discretionary community funds to be handed out by elected officials to community initiatives — while Coun. Brian Botterill (right) pitched changes to existing priority fund guidelines. The debate will return to council at a future meeting.
File Photo

Two things are for sure: Council priority funds are here to stay; and the Strathcona Community Investment Program (SCIP) is no more.

But that’s really all that was clear at the end of a council debate over discretionary priority funds on Tuesday, May 8.

Priority funds exist for council members to support community initiatives or events. In late-2017, it was pitched that priority funds be discontinued and that money should instead be moved into a county grant account, which would keep elected officials’ hands out of donation decisions.

Criticisms surrounding priority funds included that council members could use them to boost their re-election potential. However, Coun. Brian Botterill asked that such funds remain in place, saying they fill gaps not covered by other county grants.

As such, Coun. Paul Smith was alone in voting to eliminate priority funds.

However, the motion also saw the rescindment of SCIP funds, which were available to support the same types of community initiatives, but which were not distributed by council.

From there, Botterill presented numerous changes to priority fund protocols, as designed by the Governance Advisory Committee (GAC) — but only one change was approved during the lengthy debate.

The motion that passed unanimously was that council members who didn’t use their priority funds would see those funds roll over to the following year.

Coming back

Confusion was rampant on the topic, as council members voted 7-2 — without the support of councillors Robert Parks or Bill Tonita — to debate the issue at a later date.

Even then, though, some of the last words stated were surrounding unused funds rolling over — which had already been approved — with Coun. Dave Anderson raising concerns that if a councillor chooses not to use any priority funds for three years, that would give them $40,000 to hand out in an election year. He voiced an unofficial pitch that maybe rollover should be limited to two years.

Before that motion was referred to a later, council discussed numerous other changes, including that priority funds would be available to organizations, including county groups, but not to individuals. Another portion of the motion stipulated that funds used for events must be kept within Strathcona County, meaning groups could not apply for funds to help them go on a trip.

Botterill added new regulations would not allow money to go towards the hosting or logistics of an event, as he stated fears of community groups using funds to organize fundraisers that would otherwise lose money.

“We as (the GAC) do not feel that is where the county should be operating in terms of support, and in terms of making sure people’s fundraising events are actually making money,” he said.

Another heavily-debated point would see that churches not receive funds for work that specifically pushes their religion; however, religious groups could still apply for community events that are not religion-focused.

“We recognize the great work our religious and ecumenical groups do in our community,” Botterill said, adding: “What we do not want to be doing is funding the religious activities of these groups. We will still fund churches for events that benefit the community, and don’t directly benefit their religious outcomes.”

That portion struck a cord with numerous council members, including Anderson, who asked about the Sherwood Park Alliance Church’s world record-breaking potluck lunch.

“It was very community based, members of council came and participated in the judging and in making sure everything followed the rules of Guinness Book of World Records. That type of event would be OK because it’s a community event, but there would have been proselytizing going on at that event.”

The response, though, further muddied the waters, as Botterill simply stated the differentiation between religious- and community-focused events would be made on an “I’ll know it when I see it” basis.

“I trust that each individual elected official will make a decision based on whether they think that is too far,” he said, adding: “However, I do believe the community side of that would make sense, as long as we weren’t funding specifically the prayer piece of that.”

Botterill then referred to such applications as “grey areas.”

“Unless they held the event off-site, I see this as being confusing,” Anderson replied, noting that regardless of the face value of a church-organized event, “they do those things because they want to get people through the doors and they want to give the good word.”

Botterill’s response was simply that the GAC doesn’t want council “to be funding the religious activities.”

Other motions included that accredited groups would receive priority, as would applications that are not eligible for any other types of funding.

“We feel priority funds were developed to fill the gaps in community funding,” Botterill said.

The specific dollar amount for priority funds has not been decided, and won’t be until Budget 2019 deliberations by council in the fall.